LETTERS: California's most powerful lobby

The Oil/Gas Industry is represented by Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the most powerful corporate lobby in California, of which Tupper Hull is the vice-president. According to the American Lung Association, in the last five years the oil lobby has spent over $45 million undermining regulations for clean water, air, and safe health issues which their deadly polluting products cause.

Just Google the Halliburton Loophole and read how the oil industry exempted fracking from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act; 40-year-old hallmark laws that once protected our health and safety.

Tupper Hull gloats, "California regulations on well construction have been a state-of-the-art model even before the fracking controversy." This state model was responsible for the Santa Barbara Oil Spill, the largest disaster at that time, fouling hundreds of miles of pristine coastline and poisoning thousands of species of fish, seabirds and marine mammals. Please remember, Mr. Hull represents the industry responsible for the three worst manmade disasters in U.S. history, the Deepwater Horizon, the Exxon Valdez, and the Santa Barbara Oil Spill.

Hull states that fracking is safe and never has been shown to be harmful. Tell that to the town people of Lac Magentic, Quebec, where 47 people were incinerated and the downtown destroyed from a train carrying fracked Bakken Oil from North Dakota. In Bobtown Pennsylvania a frack well exploded killing a worker, and it took five days to extinguish the well fire.

These accidents, explosions and deaths will continue if we believe Mr. Hull and do nothing. With trains transporting fracked oil through Chico and Oroville, we should all have great concern.